Swarthmore College · Fall 2026 · Applications open

Makeadvanced AIgo well.

Intro Fellowship · Fall 2026

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SAISI-F26-FEL8 weeksDinner provided
DateOct 1, 2026
TimeThursdays · 6:30–8:30 PM
RoomRoom TBA, Science Center
DeadlineSep 25, 2026

SAISI-F26-FEL · The fellowship

One cohort.
Eight evenings.

An eight-week reading group on how powerful AI systems fail, who is working to prevent it, and what a Swarthmore student can actually do about it.

CatalogSAISI-F26-FEL
TermFall 2026
Length8 weeks
WhenThursdays · 6:30–8:30 PM
WhereRoom TBA, Science Center
First sessionOct 1, 2026
Cohort12–16 fellows
CommitmentTwo hours a week. All reading happens in the room.
PrerequisitesNone. No CS, no math, no prior reading.
FoodDinner provided
DeadlineSep 25, 2026
SyllabusFall 2026

Eight weeks · In order

What we read,
what we argue about

#01 Orient

Why this, why now

The case for taking advanced AI seriously: capabilities, timelines, and what it would mean for things to go well or badly.

#02 Open

How the machines are built

Pretraining, fine-tuning, RLHF, and scaling laws, explained without code. Enough to read the rest of the syllabus.

#03 Break

How they fail

Specification gaming, reward hacking, goal misgeneralization. Real incidents, real transcripts.

#04 Doubt

Deception and control

Situational awareness, sandbagging, and whether we can keep a system that is smarter than its overseers in check.

#05 Look

Inside the model

Interpretability: what circuits, features, and probes have found so far, and what they have not.

#06 Test

Evaluations

Dangerous-capability evals, red teaming, and the organizations whose job is to say no before a launch.

#07 Govern

Labs, states, and rules

Compute governance, safety frameworks, export controls, and who actually decides.

#08 Act

What you do next

Research programs, policy fellowships, career paths, and a short project you present to the cohort.

Organizers

Who runs this

Amirkhan Aidarkhan

Co-founder · Organizer

Class of 2028. Runs the fellowship and the Kairos relationship.

Elaina Pan

Co-founder · Organizer

Class of 2028. Facilitates a cohort, runs events and speaker outreach.

Jiurun Zhao

Co-founder · Organizer

Class of 2028. Facilitates a cohort, runs reading groups and community.

Faculty advisor TBA

Advisor

Swarthmore faculty sponsor for the chartered organization.

Part of a network

SAISI is the first Tri-Co group in a network of student AI safety organizations, supported by Coefficient Giving through Project Kairos's Pathfinder fellowship.

  • Harvard
  • MIT
  • Yale
  • Princeton
  • Columbia
  • Cornell
  • Stanford
  • Berkeley
  • Georgia Tech
  • UChicago
  • Cambridge
  • Oxford